Albert Gallatin
whose leaders were Mr. Gallatin's immediate friends and warm supporters.
Both Jefferson and Burr were accused of bargaining to secure enough of
the Federalist vote to turn the scale. That Mr. Jefferson did make some
sacrifice of his independence is now believed. Whether Mr. Gallatin was
aware of any such compromise is uncertain. If such bargain were made,
General Samuel Smith was the channel of arrangement, and in view of the
inexplicable and ignominious deference of Jefferson and Madison to his
political demands, there is little doubt that he held a secret power
which they dared not resist. Gallatin felt it, suffered from it,
protested against it, but submitted to it.
The fear was that Congress might adjourn without a conclusion. To meet
this emergency Mr. Gallatin devised a plan of balloting in the House,
which he communicated to Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Nicholas. It stated the
objects of the Federalists to be, 1st, to elect Burr; 2d, to defeat the
present election and order a new one; 3d, to assume _executive_ power
during the interregnum. These he considers, and suggests alternative
action in case of submission or resistance on the part of the
Republicans. The Federalists, holding three branches of government,
viz., the presidency, a majority in the Senate, and a majority in the
House, might pass a law declaring that one of the great officers
designated by the Constitution should act as president pro tempore,
which would be constitutional. But while Mr. Gallatin in this paragraph
admitted such a law to be constitutional, in the next he argued that the
act of the person designated by law, or of the president pro tempore,
assuming the power is clearly "unconstitutional." By this ingenious
process of reasoning, to which the strict constructionists have always
been partial, it might be unconstitutional to carry out constitutional
law. The assumption of such power was therefore, Mr. Gallatin held,
usurpation, to be resisted in one of two ways; by declaring the interval
till the next session of Congress an interregnum, allowing all laws not
immediately connected with presidential powers to take their course, and
opposing a silent resistance to all others; or by the Republicans
assuming the executive power by a joint act of the two candidates, or by
the relinquishment of all claims by one of them. On the other hand, the
proposed outlines of Republican conduct were, 1st, to persevere in
voting for Mr. Jefferson; 2d, to use every endeavor to defeat any law on
the subject; 3d, to try to persuade Mr. Adams to refuse his consent to
any such law and not to call the Senate on any account if there should
be no choice by the House.
In a letter written in 1848 Mr. Gallatin said that a provision by law,
that if there should be no election the executive power be placed in the
hands of some public officer, was a revolutionary act of usurpation
which would have been put down by force if necessary. It was threatened
that, if any man should be thus appointed President he should instantly
be put to death, and bodies of men were said to be organized, in
Maryland and Virginia, ready to march to Washington on March 4 for that
purpose. The fears of violence were so great that to Governor McKean of
Pennsylvania was submitted the propriety of having a body of militia in
readiness to reach the capital in time to prevent civil war. From this
letter of Mr. Gallatin, then the last surviving witness of the election,
only one conclusion can be drawn: that the Republicans would have
preferred violent resistance to temporary submission, even though the
officer exercising executive powers was appointed in accordance with
law. Fortunately for the young country there was enough good sense and
patriotism in the ranks of the Federalists to avert the danger.
On the suggestion of Mr. Bayard it was agreed by a committee of sixteen
members, one from each State, that if it should appear that the two
persons highest on the list, Jefferson and Burr, had an equal number of
votes, the House should immediately proceed in their own chamber to
choose the president by ballot, and should not adjourn until an
election should have been made. On the first ballot there was a tie
between Jefferson and Burr; the deadlock continued until February 17,
when the Federalists abandoned the contest, and Mr. Jefferson received
the requisite number of votes. Burr, having the second number, became
vice-president.
Mr. Gallatin's third congressional term closed with this Congress. In
his first term he asserted his power and took his place in the councils
of the party. In his second, he became its acknowledged chief. In the
third, he led its forces to final victory. But for his opposition, war
would have been declared against France, and the Republican party would
have disappeared in the political chasm. But for his admirable
management, Mr. Jefferson would have been relegated to the study of
theoretical government on his Monticello farm, or to play second fiddle
at the Capitol to the music of Aaron Burr.
In the foregoing analysis of the debates and resolutions of Congress,
and the recital of the part taken in them by Mr. Gallatin, attention has
only been paid to such of the proceedings as concerned the
interpretation of the Constitution or the forms of administration with
which Mr. Gallatin interested himself. From the day of his first
appearance he commanded the attention and the respect of his fellows.
The leadership of his party fell to him as of course. It was not grasped
by him. He was never a partisan. He never waived his entire
independence of judgment. His ingenuity and adroitness never tempted him
to untenable positions. Hence his party followed him with implicit
confidence. Yet while the debates of Congress, imperfectly reported as
they seem to be in its annals, show the deference paid to him by the
Republican leaders, and display the great share he took in the
definition of powers and of administration as now understood, his name
is hardly mentioned in history. Jefferson and Madison became presidents
of the United States. They, with Gallatin, formed the triumvirate which
ruled the country for sixteen years. Gallatin was the youngest of the
three.[9] To this political combination Gallatin brought a knowledge of
constitutional law equal to their own, a knowledge of international law
superior to that of either, and a habit of practical administration of
which they had no conception. The Republican party lost its chief when
Gallatin left the House; from that day it floundered to its close.
In the balance of opinion there are no certain weights and measures. The
preponderance of causes cannot be precisely ascertained. The freedom
which the people of the United States enjoy to-day is not the work of
any one party. Those who are descended from its original stock, and
those whom its free institutions have since invited to full membership,
owe that freedom to two causes: the one, formulated by Hamilton, a
strong, central power, which, deriving its force from the people,
maintains its authority at home and secures respect abroad; the other,
the spirit of liberty which found expression in the famous declaration
of the rights of man. This influence Jefferson represented. It taught
the equality of man; not equality before the law alone, nor yet
political equality, but that absolute freedom from class distinction
which is true social equality; in a word, mutual respect. But for
Hamilton we might be a handful of petty States, in discordant
confederation or perpetual war; but for Jefferson, a prey to the class
jealousy which unsettles the social relations and threatens the
political existence of European States.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 4: Lord Sheffield to Mr. Abbott, November 6, 1812.
_Correspondence of Lord Colchester_, ii. 409.]
[Footnote 5: Gallatin later described Jackson as he first saw him in his
seat in the House: "A tall, lank, uncouth looking individual, with long
locks of hair hanging over his brows and face, while a queue hung down
his back tied in an eelskin. The dress of this individual was singular,
his manners and deportment that of a backwoodsman." Bartlett's
_Reminiscences of Gallatin_.]
[Footnote 6: The phrase "stop the wheels of government" originated with
"Peter Porcupine" (William Cobbett) and was on every tongue.]
[Footnote 7: Charles C. Pinckney, when ambassador to France, 1796.]
[Footnote 8: Jefferson to William Duane, March 28, 1811. Jefferson's
_Works_, vol. v. p. 574.]
[Footnote 9: Jefferson was born in 1743, Madison in 1751, Gallatin in
1761.]
CHAPTER VI
SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY
_Funding_
The material comfort of every people depends more immediately upon the
correct management of its finances than upon any other branch of
government. _Haute finance_, to use a French expression for which there
is no English equivalent, demands in its application the faculties of
organization and administration in their highest degree. The relations
of money to currency and credit, and their relations to industry and
agriculture, or in modern phrase of capital to labor, fall within its
scope. The history of France, the nation which has best understood and
applied true principles of finance, supplies striking examples of the
benefits a finance minister of the first order renders to his country,
and the dangers of false theories. The marvelous restoration of its
prosperity by the genius of Colbert, the ruin caused by the malign
sciolism of Law, are familiar to all students of political economy. Nor
has the United States been less favored. The names of Morris, Hamilton,
Gallatin, and Chase shine with equal lustre.
Morris, the Financier of the Revolution, was called to the
administration of the money department of the United States government
when there was no money to administer. Before his appointment as
"Financier" the expenses of the government, military and civil, had been
met by expedients; by foreign loans, lotteries, and loan office
certificates; finally by continental money, or, more properly speaking,
bills of credit emitted by authority of Congress and made legal tender
by joint action of Congress and the several States. The relation of coin
to paper in this motley currency appears in the appendix to the "Journal
of Congress" for the year 1778, when the government paid out in fourteen
issues of paper currency, $62,154,842; in specie, $78,666; in French
livres, $28,525.[10] The power of taxation was jealously withheld by the
States, and Congress could not go beyond recommending to them to levy
taxes for the withdrawal of the bills emitted by it for their quotas,
_pari passu_ with their issue. When the entire scheme of paper money
failed, the necessary supplies for the army were levied in kind. In the
spring of 1781 the affairs of the Treasury Department were investigated
by a committee of Congress, and an attempt was made to ascertain the
precise condition of the public debt. The amount of foreign debt was
approximately reached, but the record of the domestic debt was
inextricably involved, and never definitely discovered. Morris soon
brought order out of this chaos. His plan was to liquidate the public
indebtedness in specie, and fund it in interest-bearing bonds. The Bank
of North America was established, the notes of which were soon preferred
to specie as a medium of exchange. Silver, then in general use as the
measure of value, was adopted as the single standard. The weight and
pureness of the dollar were fixed by law. The dollar was made the unit
of account and payment, and subdivisions were made in a decimal ratio.
This was the dollar of our fathers. Gouverneur Morris, the assistant of
the Financier, suggested the decimal computation, and Jefferson the